Inman: The best and worst moments of the 49ers’ 6-11 season

SANTA CLARA – Nick Bosa dismissed it as “an off year.” He could be right. The 49ers could revive in 2025 after relinquishing their NFC crown without much of a fight this past season.

It’s as if they charged this season on their corporate card, passing the bucking in a year that began with highly publicized contract squabbles. They underachieved, more than any team since the turn of the century.

They lacked joy, touchdowns, flair, healthy stars, takeaways, victories, catchphrases, and fourth-quarter clinchers. They bottomed out in the NFC West with a 6-11 mark, a year after going 12-5 before their playoff march to the Super Bowl.

It wasn’t all bad, but most of it was. Here are this season’s best and worst:

BEST WIN

Any 49ers victory over the rival Dallas Cowboys is a bright spot. This one, a 30-24 triumph Oct. 27, required a second-half comeback on Sunday Night Football, and in true 2024 fashion, they still got outscored in the fourth quarter, 14-3.

WORST LOSS

It’s fair to pick any of their NFC West come-from-ahead defeats, but the one that planted the seed was their first: Sept. 22 against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium, the venue formerly known as Levi’s South. A 24-14 fourth-quarter lead vanished — on the same field a 10-point, fourth-quarter cushion wasn’t enough in the 2021 season’s NFC title game, their previous loss in L.A.

OFFENSIVE MVP

George Kittle, by virtue of his fourth career 1,000-yard season, his team-leading eight touchdown catches, his seventh year as a captain, his love for blocking, and his overall aura. Teammates honored him with his second Len Eshmont Award, the other coming in 2019.

DEFENSIVE MVP

Dre Greenlaw’s 34-snap comeback is sadly not enough to qualify. Nick Bosa hustled to the bitter end but totaled just nine sacks. Deommodore Lenoir was a stud who got paid, with just two interceptions. The winner: Fred Warner, who didn’t have his best year but he started hot, then powered through a Week 4 ankle injury involving a fractured bone. He had 131 tackles in 17 starts, and coaches gave him the Bill Walsh Award.

BEST SCENE

Fans rose from their Levi’s Stadium seats to applaud Ricky Pearsall after his first NFL catch in his delayed debut against the Kansas City Chiefs, seven weeks after surviving a gunshot wound through his chest by an attempted robber in San Francisco’s Union Square.

UGLIEST SCENE

Deebo Samuel came off the 49ers’ sideline to confront Jake Moody after his third missed field goal in Tampa Bay. Samuel then jabbed at the throat of I’ve-Got-Your-Back long snapper Taybor Pepper, sideswiping Moody’s helmet, too. Moody (and Pepper) responded by delivering the game-winning, walk-off field goal.

WORST EXIT

De’Vondre Campbell’s refusal to come off the bench in Dre Greenlaw’s debut left the 49ers shorthanded. It prompted John Lynch to descend from his executive suite and order Campbell off the field as the fourth quarter began in their Dec. 12 loss to the Rams. Campbell was suspended the final three games, presumably marking the end of his nine-year NFL career.

BEST STARTING DEBUT

Jordan Mason, rushing for a season-best 147 yards after Christian McCaffrey was scratched from the opening-night lineup – a move that went public 90 minutes before kickoff, while Mason accidentally suggested in a postgame interview he knew days in advance.

MOST DISAPPOINTING

McCaffrey’s encore, as the NFL’s reigning rushing king and offensive player of the year. Fantasy football owners scrambled to learn what “bilateral Achilles tendinitis” was, and so did McCaffrey as he sought answers in Germany. Even after returning two months into the season, a hard-luck fall in Buffalo ended his comeback after 3 ½ games (202 rushing yards, 146 receiving yards).

BEST INTERCEPTION

Rookie Renardo Green cut in front of Seahawks’ star receiver D.K. Metcalf for a fourth-quarter interception that sealed a win in Seattle – and prevented another fourth-quarter collapse.

WORST PENALTIES

It wasn’t Jauan Jennings getting ejected Sunday 25 yards shy of a 1,000-yard season. Defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen’s unit was flagged for 12 men on the field on consecutive plays from the 49ers’ 10-yard line in a 34-10 loss at Green Bay. Ironically, Campbell left the field as the 12th man, and, three games later, he refused to enter as a much-needed 11th defender.

BEST FORCED FUMBLE

Warner forced the New York Jets’ Breece Hall to fumble on the first completion allowed this season. (In the 49ers’ next home game, Warner had the 49ers’ only pick-six of the season, against the Patriots’ Jacoby Brissett.)

WORST PLAY

Brandon Aiyuk, after dramatically drawing out contract talks through training camp, saw his season end in Week 7, when the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his right knee were torn on a hit by a Kansas City Chiefs defender in a 28-18 home defeat. Season totals: 25 catches, 374 yards, no touchdowns.

BEST HAT TRICK, OFFENSE

Jennings’ three touchdown receptions (amid a 175-yard outing) staked the 49ers to a 21-7 third-quarter lead … en route to the Week 3 collapse in Los Angeles.

BEST HAT TRICK, DEFENSE:

Yetur Gross-Matos’ three sacks against Chicago in the 49ers’ only win over the last two months. In 94 career games, Nick Bosa has produced three sacks in a game just twice (2019 vs. Carolina, 2022 vs. Miami).

WORST HAT TRICK

Moody, but not for his three missed field goals in Tampa Bay, where he ended up the walk-off hero. His 2025 fate may have been sealed in the home finale against the Lions with three misses (two field goals, one point-after try).

BEST TOUCHDOWN CATCH

Kittle soared above three Patriots defenders to snag Purdy’s 12-yard prayer in the left corner of the end zone en route to a 30-13 Week 4 win.

BEST HIT

Malik Mustapha, in his NFL debut, even if it was the preseason opener at Tennessee, where he made a fourth-down wallop shy of the goal line. “Having that highlight was something that sparked something in me to kind of keep going and carried on throughout the year,” said Mustapha, who later had big hits on the Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt and Xavier Worthy in an Oct. 20 loss.

BEST RUN

Isaac Guerendo’s 76-yard sprint-and-slide in Seattle personified this season. He didn’t score a touchdown on it, and while he slid to keep the clock running, it was debatable whether he did so intentionally. It was never easy this season for any rusher.

BEST/WORST RUN

McCaffrey’s 18-yard burst on his penultimate carry in Buffalo, before he slid and surrendered on his final carry. McCaffrey was a shoestring tackle away from a touchdown, but instead made another trip to injured reserve. “It felt like I had a better burst. It felt like I had my feet under me again,” McCaffrey recalled Monday. “I was seeing it right. I was hitting it.”

BEST TOUCHDOWN RUN

The 49ers had only three touchdown runs covering at least 10 yards, and all three came in losses: Mason for 10 yards at the Vikings; Purdy, 10 yards against the Seahawks; and, Guerendo, 15 yards through the Buffalo snow.

STUNNING STAT

McCaffrey, Aiyuk and Samuel combined for 40 touchdowns last season. That trio accounted for just four scores this season, all from Samuel.

EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL

The 49ers were outscored 165-88 in the fourth quarter, a 77-point differential that is their worst in at least 25 years. Last season they were plus-66 in the fourth quarter.

SPECIAL TEAMS BLUNDER (NON-KICK)

A blocked punt at Minnesota? A fake-punt conversion allowed in Week 3 at Los Angeles, and another in Week 18 at Arizona? A fumbled kick return? Allowing a 97-yard kick return for a Seattle touchdown, then a 55-yard punt return the next game against Kansas City? Two kickers getting hurt making tackles in back-to-back games? Embarrassing onside-kick attempts? Answer: All of the above.

WORST MISSED KICK

Moody missed 9-of-20 field-goal attempts after returning this season from an Oct. 6 high ankle sprain to his kicking leg. But it was a 55-yard miss with 2:43 left in the Week 3 loss at Los Angeles casting a dark cloud.

INJURY OMEN

Remember back in August when the 49ers were so injury-depleted they called off joint practices with the Tennessee Titans ahead of the preseason opener. Remember Pat Elfein, a veteran center who injured his calf 15 minutes into warmups in his first training camp practice, sending him right to injured reserve, where 18 players finished at season’s end?

ROOKIE SHOW

Of the 49ers’ seven draft picks who saw valuable action, Dominick Puni started every game at right guard and played a team-high 1,078 snaps (missing only one). Did Puni envision this? “Wildest dreams, yes, but was I expecting it? I’d be lying if I said yeah. Some guys went down in camp and I was able to take advantage of my reps with the ones. Having help from Colton (McKivitz) and Jake (Brendel) playing next to me helped a lot.”

BEST QUOTE

“It’s not like us. But that’s just what we’ve shown this year, so I guess until we stop doing that, that’s who we are.” – Warner, after the Nov. 17 fourth-quarter collapse to Seattle that launched their fall from contention.

IN SUMMARY

“We dealt with a lot, a ton of things we didn’t see coming, with Ricky (Pearsall getting shot) to our O-line coach (Chris Foerster losing his wife to cancer in February) to Charvarius Ward (losing his 23-month-old daughter in October), Trent Williams (losing a stillborn son in November). We went through a lot and weren’t able to get through some of those games.” – Kittle